The Fifth Room by A. J. Rushby

Author:A. J. Rushby [Rushby, A. J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Australia
Published: 2017-03-15T04:00:00+00:00

It’s so hard to stay on track as different thoughts keep jumping out at me, jostling for attention in my mind. The thing is, there are so many factors to consider that the moment I try to pause to consider one of them, yet another enters my mind. And another. And another.

Something else I’m worried about—if I say no, what will the Society think about my answer? Will that leave some kind of black mark against my name? What if I’m not asked back to experiment? What if this is some kind of test?

And something else: even if I wanted to say yes to experimenting on Ryan, what would I do? What would my experiment be? There’s no benefit to my current research. I’d have to start a completely new research project and the only other feasible area that it could be in—the only one I know as much about—is infectious diseases. My mother’s specialty. Ryan’s interest area.

I put my head in my hands then. Karma. That’s what this is. Research karma. I recall Ryan’s issues with informed consent—they’ve come back to haunt him in the worst possible way.

A knock on my lab door sees me raise my head. ‘Come in!’ I yell out, getting up from my bed and entering the lab area.

The door opens and Marcus enters.

He walks on over and pulls together two chairs from different parts of the room.

‘Miri,’ he says, gesturing towards one of the chairs. ‘Please, take a seat.’

With a gulp, I do so. Marcus sits as well.

‘So, questions? I know it’s a lot to ask to make such a decision quickly, but we don’t have that much time, I’m afraid.’

I nod.

‘Anything you’d like to ask?’

I take a deep breath. ‘I suppose the main thing I want to ask is about how this obviously deviates from the Society’s original purpose, which is self-experimentation.’

Marcus watches me closely and waits for me to add to this. But I don’t.

‘It isn’t self-experimentation, of course, but the Society does believe it is in the spirit of self-experimentation.’

‘So you’re saying it’s what this student wanted?’ I’m hoping Ryan had some sort of special conditions attached to his obviously dangerous experiment, or that he’d discussed possible complications with someone.

Marcus pauses, considering his words carefully. ‘It was never discussed.’

‘It’s just … well, I don’t see it as the same as having decided to leave your body to science. If there’s been no agreement.’ I come back to the informed consent issue I’d been thinking about only moments before. This offer of the Society’s is incredibly different from such a situation. It’s hidden away. Secretive. However I feel about Ryan, his family are being denied the opportunity to see him and undoubtedly won’t be here when his life support is switched off. To me, experimenting on him seems … callous. Opportunistic. It’s like the slippery slope argument with euthanasia. You start with physician-assisted suicide and before you know it, you’re euthanising psychiatric patients and putting posters up about racial health. Likewise, today

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